Ancestors without Surnames

[ACard]

I have a lot of Dutch ancestors who didn't have surnames before Napoleon declared that they must in 1811. When I upgraded to version 10, all of these people got a default of UNNAMED, which isn't really accurate. Is there a way to get rid of "unnamed" for all of them at the same time? I don't want it showing up that way in reports and whatnot.
Thanks,
Adrian

[Mark]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

Hi Adrian,

You should only see "UNNAMED" if the entry has no data in any of the 4 name fields (First & Mid Name, Last Name, Prefix Title and Suffix Title). Reunion 9 would have displayed such entries the same way.

In order to get rid of the "UNNAMED" entries you will either need to enter a name into one of the above-mentioned fields or delete the entries.

HTH

[ACard]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

Hi, Mark,

I just went to one of my ancestors without a surname and on the family view he shows up as "UNNAMED" in the surname field. When I click on the name to edit, the surname is blank. If I search for relatives whose last name contains "UNNAMED" i get no matches, but there are hundreds of them that appear that way on the family pages. I just tried to create report and it looks like they appear without the "UNNAMED" but it's kind of annoying to see it on the family page. Any way to get rid of it?

Thanks,
Adrian

[Mark]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

When I click on the name to edit, the surname is blank.

Are the other name fields - First & Mid Name, Suffix and Prefix - also blank?

[ACard]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

No, just the surname field. You probably already know this, but they used patronymics and toponymics. So Klaas, the son of Jan would be Klaas Jansz. but no surname. If there's a toponymic, I put that in the surname field. E.g., Klaas Jansz. van Scheveningen - Klaas Jan's son from Scheveningen. Klaas Jansz. would go in the first name field and "van Scheveningen" in the surname field. But quite a lot of them are just the patronymic and lumped into the first name field, leaving the surname field blank.

Thanks for your help!
Adrian

[martha]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

I have a lot of Dutch ancestors who didn't have surnames before Napoleon declared that they must in 1811. When I upgraded to version 10, all of these people got a default of UNNAMED, which isn't really accurate. Is there a way to get rid of "unnamed" for all of them at the same time? I don't want it showing up that way in reports and whatnot.
Thanks,
Adrian

I took care of this problem by never leaving a blank last name. I have one of several solutions: if, in the earliest time frame, the person was called, say, Shlomo ben Shimon, I added the rest of the known heritage as well, i.e. Shlomo ben Shimon ben Yitzchak ben ...

If I do not know the surname [of usage], I always put something [in brackets] that will be an identifier: Shlomo [husband of Rivka bat Avraham] or some such, so that there is never a blank surname and what is filled in will always lead me to know with whom I am dealing. I have 27,000 plus individuals in my db and I have found this way of doing things very helpful in keeping everyone straight. When a missing surname is finally uncovered, I remove the created information with the confirmed one.

A list of these improvised surnames can always be found easily by searching for surnames that begin with [ .

Martha

[Paul Luning]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

FWIW, I have one person with no surname, and she shows correctly as having only a first name in all the views and reports I tried. I also deleted the surname for another person, and she displayed correctly. UNNAMED is not showing up anywhere in my tests.
Paul

[Bob White]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

Same as Paul except that I have about three dozen. None display UNNAMED or anything else as a surname.

[L Stringer]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

See a question "filling blank fields" on previous page. Using a list to expose empty field then use copy and paste to fill all similar people or line by line if need be.

[P McCann]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

Sorry, just catching up on this, but I, too, have many individuals with First/Mid names, even with prefix and/or suffix titles who display as "UNNAMED" but only as a parent. As an individual, "UNNAMED" disappears. Is that normal?

[Deb]

Re: Ancestors without Surnames

Sorry, just catching up on this, but I, too, have many individuals with First/Mid names, even with prefix and/or suffix titles who display as "UNNAMED" but only as a parent. As an individual, "UNNAMED" disappears. Is that normal?

I was able to duplicate what you are seeing. And, it should not happen.

I added this to our list of things to check into fixing in a future update.

In the meantime, a work-around is to view the parents "stacked" instead of "side-by-side."

I.e., choose Reunion -> Preferences and click on Family View. Then, select the Parents tab and click "Stacked" in the Buttons section.

I hope this is helpful for you:-)